[J3] (SC22WG5.6191) [EXTERNAL] RE: [ukfortran] October meeting visa invitation letter

[Reuben D. Budiardja]

On 04/29/2020 11:10 AM, Bill Long via J3 wrote:
> Soo many postings it’s hard to pick one to reply to  But this one hit on some important issues...
> 
>> On Apr 29, 2020, at 3:31 AM, Malcolm Cohen via J3 <j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:
>>
>>> The community is on GitHub.
>>   
>> Well, *a* community is on GitHub. A substantial one even.
> 
> 
> Agreed.  I would point out that some people have an aversion to, and concerns about,  products from Microsoft (of which GitHub is one, and Skype another).   Google and Facebook have acquired tarnished reputations  as well.  And don’t get the cyber security folks started about ZOOM.

> <snipped ...>

> As an alternative, I suspect there would be less concern if off-line discussions could be facilitated through the J3 website.  This does not address concerns about such a mode of operation in general (of which several have been discussed in this thread), but at least the J3 website is something we control, and it avoids the issues mentioned above.   Of course, it is unfair to “volunteer” Stave to do work here, so such a path would require further discussion.

Gitlab is an open-source alternative with very similar core features 
that can hosted "on-prem" (which is the main reason we have it at the 
Lab), so J3 can stand up its own instance if this is the way we want to 
go. This would be something I'd be happy to volunteer to help running.

Best,
Reuben